Upcoming gTLDs
Michael Wolter takes us through the upcoming developments in gTLDs for the new year.
The New Year is officially upon us! As we loosen our belts a notch to accommodate our holiday bellies, we can cast our eyes over the delicious buffet of 2016 and how to maximize our business’s growth this year. ICANN is releasing a slew of new gTLDs in the coming months, and the sooner you can reserve one of these domain extensions the better chance you have of spreading your company’s digital reach. Listed below are our top picks for the gTLDs that will not only extend your online presence, but secure your spot in today’s ever-expanding digital marketplace.
.game
Online gaming has exploded within the last few years, so anyone who can get their hands on a .game extension and focus their business into this sector of the online community will be poised for major earning. According to Statista.com, the projected market share for global online gaming is $41.4 billion, signaling huge potential for profit. Online gaming is centered around the transfer of monetary funds, so the initial profit pot is always available. Using a .game extension tells gamers that you are not a player in this space, rather you run this space.
.auto
Automotive companies are some of the most powerful in the world, and with driverless vehicles just around the corner the focus is going to be increasingly on the marriage of technology and cars. Enter .auto. Also being released this year are .car and .cars, but the reason we like .auto better is that it has a more international reach, especially in the Western marketplace: “auto” is the word for car in Spanish, Italian, Czech, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, German, Hungarian, Latvian, and Slovak. Adorning your site address with .auto puts you on the map with global automotive companies that have plenty of horsepower.
.mom
Millennials are the first generation to have experienced the internet from childhood, and as such they use the internet for almost everything, from shopping to community building to advice. The .mom extension covers all these bases, being an all-encompassing gTLD for anything related to child rearing. What’s more, kids are expensive so there is a wealth of ways on which to capitalize this market. If your business touches any part of this market, whether it be an online clothing retailer or a forum for moms seeking help with their little ones, .mom could be just what your company needs to move to the front of the line.
.cloud
The market for cloud computing was already generating $100 billion a year in 2012 and it could be $270 billion by the year 2020, according to Market Research Media. Almost all of the web these days is dealing in some way with cloud computing. Not only are sites offering digital storage to consumers in a very competitive market, like Google Drive and Dropbox, but software programs are building platforms that are accessed via the cloud instead of locally. Adding .cloud to the end of your site address pops you in the middle of this rapidly expanding section of the market, poised at the front of the race in digital cloud computing.
And there you have it, folks! .game, .auto, .mom, and .cloud are our top choices for the new gTLDs to hit the market this year. Get your name on the reserve list as early as possible; you can create a watchlist and Midphase will keep an eye on the release dates for you, emailing you when it’s time to strike. Also, if you’re a trademark holder you get to cut the line and apply before the gTLDs hit the market, giving you first pick.
Visit Midphase.com to check out the extensions list and get your specialized gTLD today!